One of my favourite opera's is Strauss' Electra. I have heard several versions but am in a quandry re which one to buy: 1. Mitropolous/VPO/Bork and others. Live 1957. Orfeo. Searing conducting and excellent singing. Perspectives can shift strangely in this old mono recording. Lots of atmosphere and the conducting in the final scene is very special. A dark propulsive reading. 2. Sinopoli/VPO/Marc and others. A UK critic described this as a "weird recording of a weird opera" which goes part of the way to explaining why I liked what I heard. Marc's voice is very beautiful and she moulds vocal lines thrillingly (I am a fan of this singer). Sinopoli's conducting is a mixture of the imaginative and neurotic. Sound is again a problem - seems to be tilted toward the left speaker (or is it just my old player?) 3. Bohm/VPO (again!) /Rysanek and others (1980,video) Absolutely brilliant staging. Camerawork + lighting as in an old horror film. Electra scratches in the mud and gets drenched with rain. The scene where she confronts her decadant mother (Astrid Varnay no less)following the orgy/human sacrifice scene is almost laughingly OTT. The setting looks like an old war zone and the palace is an abstract aluminium ediface (drenched with blood by the end). Rysanek's acting is superb - try her misplaced elation in the final scene where she really goes over the edge and, after dancing down the plinth of her father's statue, she shudders and dies. VPO is placed too backwardly, undermining the urgency and drama of Bohm's conducting. If you had to take an Electra to your desert island, which one who it be? David Harbin Nottingham, UK. [log in to unmask]